Pope Francis has met with Brazil’s indigenous chief Raoni, who is on a European tour to raise awareness about the dangers facing the Amazon. The pope’s meeting with one of the great leaders of the Kayapo people living in the Amazonian forest in Brazil, took place at the Vatican on May 27.

“Through this meeting, Pope Francis reaffirms his attention to the Amazonian peoples and environment and his commitment to the preservation of the common home,” the Holy See explained in a statement.

The Vatican also said that the meeting was part of the preparation of the next Synod of Bishops’ special assembly on Amazonia to be held next October in the Vatican.

The working document, which will serve as a basis for the debates of this assembly, is scheduled to be published in June, Cardinal Pedro Barreto of Huancayo (Peru) and member of the pre-synodal council, announced a few days ago.

A conference in Taiwan has been told that China’s communist government is increasingly using so-called ‘sharp power’ to stymie international scrutiny of its poor human rights record, including the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989.

At the same time, the Beijing regime has been tightening controls on its own people, warned academics, student leaders and rights’ campaigners.

The term ‘sharp power’ was coined in December 2017 in a report of the United States non-profit National Endowment for Democracy to describe censor-ship and other tactics used to weaken independent institutions.

Wikipedia defines sharp power as the use of manipulative diplomatic policies by one country to influence and under-mine the political system of a target nation.

The May 18-20 conference in Taiwan marking the 30th anniversary of the June 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre was organized by the Hong Kong-based New School for Democracy and the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.

More than 50 scholars, student leaders and witnesses of the Tiananmen Square protest, as well as representatives of overseas support groups and Hong Kong democratic parties, were present as speakers and discussants.

A Chinese charity called Huiling that supports people with mental disabilities paid tribute this month to Jean Vanier, the Canadian Catholic who inspired its creation, after he died in France on May 7 at the age of 90.

Huiling founder Meng Weinuo, a Chinese Catholic, said Vanier had recently been beset by health problems.

“He’d been in and out of hospital several times this year,” she said. “We knew it was just a matter of time before he returned to his heavenly home.”

The charity enjoys support from the Catholic Church. Meng set it up in the southern port city of Guangzhou in 1990 with Father Cagnin Fernando, a member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME).

Huiling gained a reputation as the first NGO to serve mentally disabled people in China during the 1980s. It now has 20 service points nationwide.

Meng said she was inspired by L’Arche, an international private voluntary organization that works for the creation of growth of homes, programs, and support networks for people with intellectual disabilities.

Vanier, a Catholic who was born in Canada but later migrated to France, founded L’Arche in 1964. He was also a co-founder in 1971 of Faith and Light, a similar organization.

Meng got to meet Varnier in France in May 2013 when she and Father Fernando visited a L’Arche community there.

“Huiling has always admired L’Arche. We really want to be a sister organization with you,” she recalled telling the elderly Canadian.

Varnier welcomed the move but said he had stepped down from running the organization. He referred her to the head of L’Arche International.

Six months later, the two agencies signed a partnership deal. L’Arche agreed to provide training and spiritual support to Huiling.

A Kenyan activist gestures next to a banner with a collaged image of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto during a march against corruption in Nairobi on April 30.

Kenya’s bishops have launched a campaign to slay “the dragon of corruption” in the East African nation.

Archbishop Philip Anyolo, chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops, said corruption has reached alarming levels and the only way to fight it is by starting from the grass roots.

“We have allowed the dragon of corruption to pull us down to the point where we have accepted it to be our way of life,” he said in a statement on behalf of the organization.

“We are also caught up in perennial, endless political bickering, maneuvers and utterings that slow our country in moving forward in a fresh direction that will bring meaningful development and national integration.

“We all know that corruption is a grave sin and therefore call upon our faithful and people of goodwill to externally commit freely and sincerely, appending their signatures where and when needed, for fighting corruption and corruption practices.”

Archbishop Anyolo said, Kenyan bishops will lead from the front by rejecting all forms of corrupt practices as he urged Kenyans to promote a culture of honesty.

“Kenyans seem to have lost their moral conscience of doing good. Why is it so difficult to resolve not to engage in bribes, either receiving or giving bribes? The war on corruption has to be won by each citizen, indeed each person; you and me,” he added.